Does the race of your
child's teacher matter?
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Photo provided by The Black Star Project - Photo Source
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By Rebecca Kimitch
The San Gabriel Valley Tribune
September 10, 2015
When children in California walked into their classrooms at the start of the school year, odds are they saw a white person at the head of the room. And odds are, when they looked around at their classmates, they saw a lot of Latino, Asian and Black students.
Despite efforts to increase the diversity of the state's teaching ranks, minority teachers remain almost as underrepresented in public schools as they were 10 years ago, according to an assessment of California Department of Education data.
And a growing body of research suggests this can negatively impact minority students' success in a significant way.
While 54 percent of students in California public schools are Latino, only 19 percent of teachers are. The numbers are better for other minority students in the state, though they, too, remain underrepresented by teachers.
And though Los Angeles County has a much larger percentage of Latino, Asian and Black teachers than the state, the large population of minority students means they are still underrepresented.
Particular school districts in Los Angeles County, many of which have faced rapid shifts in demographics, have even stronger disparities. In Arcadia Unified, for example, only 15 percent of students are white, but 73 percent of teachers and 88 percent of administrators are.
"This isn't just a few percentage points' difference. These are huge gaps," said Ulrich Boser, author of a report by the Center for American Progress aimed at increasing the number of teachers of color in classrooms across the country.
Research shows that when minority students have a teacher of the same background, it fosters increased engagement, confidence, trust and comfort in the classroom. And they are also provided a valuable role model. The effects aren't just subjective.
Other well-cited research has produced similar results, including one study that showed when students were matched with teachers of their own race, academic achievement increased by 3-4 percentage points, according to the Center for American Progress report.
